View source for Philosophy:Materialism and Empirio-criticism

{{Short description|1909 book by Vladimir Lenin}}
{{Italic title}}
[[File:Materialism-and-Empirio-Criticism.jpg|thumb|right|250px|Front cover of the first edition of Lenin's ''Materialism and Empirio-criticism,'' published in Moscow in 1909 under the pseudonym "Vl. Ilyin."]]
'''''Materialism and Empirio-criticism''''' ([[Social:Russian language|Russian]]: ''Материализм и эмпириокритицизм, Materializm i empiriokrititsizm'') is a philosophical work by [[Biography:Vladimir Lenin|Vladimir Lenin]], published in 1909. It was an obligatory subject of study in all institutions of higher education in the [[Place:Soviet Union|Soviet Union]],<ref name="Hedeler">{{cite journal |last3=Hedeler |first3=Wladislaw |editor1-last=Rockmore |editor1-first=Tom |editor2-last=Levine |editor2-first=Norman |title=Lenin and Stalin: Theory and Politics |journal=The Palgrave Handbook of Leninist Political Philosophy |date=2018 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0nWADwAAQBAJ&q=%22Materialism+and+Empirio-criticism%22+obligatory+in+soviet+union&pg=PA260 |publisher=Springer |isbn=9781137516503 |language=en}}</ref> as a seminal work of [[Philosophy:Dialectical materialism|dialectical materialism]], a part of the curriculum called "[[Social:Marxism–Leninism|Marxist–Leninist]] Philosophy".<ref name="Bakhurst">{{cite journal |last1=Bakhurst |first1=David |title=On Lenin's Materialism and empiriocriticism |journal=Studies in East European Thought |date=2018 |volume=70 |issue=2-3, 28 June 2018 |pages=107–119 |doi= 10.1007/s11212-018-9303-7 |s2cid=149668554 |url=https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/voices.uchicago.edu/dist/6/1013/files/2018/12/Bakhurst2018_Article_OnLeninSMaterialismAndEmpirioc-28iw1nm.pdf}}</ref> Lenin argued that human minds are capable of forming representations of the world that portray the world as it is. Thus, Lenin argues, our beliefs about the world can be objectively true; a belief is true when it accurately reflects the facts. According to Lenin, absolute truth is possible, but our theories are often only relatively true. Scientific theories can therefore constitute knowledge of the world.<ref name="Bakhurst"/>

Lenin formulates the fundamental philosophical contradiction between idealism and materialism as follows:
"Materialism is the recognition of 'objects in themselves' or objects outside the mind; the ideas and sensations are copies or images of these objects. The opposite doctrine (idealism) says: the objects do not exist, outside the mind '; they are 'connections of sensations'."<ref>W. I. Lenin: '' Materialism and empirio-criticism. Critical remarks about a reactionary philosophy ''. Publisher for foreign language literature, Moscow 1947. p. 14.</ref>

==Background==
The book, whose full title is ''Materialism and Empirio-criticism. Critical Comments on a Reactionary Philosophy'', was written by Lenin from February through October 1908 while he was in [[Place:Geneva|Geneva]] and [[Place:London|London]] and was published in [[Place:Moscow|Moscow]] in May 1909 by Zveno Publishers. The original manuscript and preparatory materials have been lost.<ref name="Prikhodko">{{cite journal |last1=Prikhodko |first1=Sergey Alexandrovich |title=''Materialism and Empirio-Criticism'' by V.I.Lenin as the Main Russian Language Polemical text of the 1900s |journal=Russian Linguistic Bulletin |date=2015 |volume=3 |issue=3 |pages=9–11 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/307135975}}{{rp|10}}</ref>

Most of the book was written when Lenin was in Geneva, apart from the one month spent in London, where he visited the library of the British Museum to access modern philosophical and natural science material. The index lists in excess of 200 sources for the book.<ref name="Prikhodko"/>

In December 1908, Lenin moved from Geneva to [[Place:Paris|Paris]], where he worked until April 1909 on correcting the proofs. Some passages were edited to avoid tsarist censorship. It was published in Imperial Russia with great difficulty. Lenin insisted on the rapid distribution of the book and stressed that "not only literary but also serious political obligations" were involved in its publication.<ref name="Prikhodko"/>

The book was written as a reaction and criticism to the three-volume work ''Empiriomonism'' (1904–1906) by [[Biography:Alexander Bogdanov|Alexander Bogdanov]], his political opponent within the Party. In June 1909, Bogdanov was defeated at a Bolshevik mini-conference in Paris and expelled from the Central Committee, but he still retained a relevant role in the Party's left wing. He participated in the Russian Revolution and after 1917, he was appointed director of the Socialist Academy of Social Sciences.{{Citation needed|date=October 2019}}

''Materialism and Empirio-criticism'' was republished in Russian in 1920 with an introduction attacking Bogdanov by Vladimir Nevsky. It subsequently appeared in over 20 languages and acquired canonical status in Marxist–Leninist philosophy.{{Citation needed|date=October 2019}}

== Chapters summary ==

;Chapter I: The Epistemology of Empiriocriticism and Dialectical Materialism I
Lenin then discusses the "[[Philosophy:Solipsism|solipsism]]" of [[Biography:Ernst Mach|Mach]] and [[Biography:Richard Avenarius|Avenarius]].

;Chapter II: The Epistemology of Empiriocriticism and Dialectical Materialism II
Lenin, Chernov and [[Biography:Vladimir Bazarov|Basarov]] confront the views of [[Biography:Ludwig Feuerbach|Ludwig Feuerbach]], [[Biography:Joseph Dietzgen|Joseph Dietzgen]] and [[Biography:Friedrich Engels|Friedrich Engels]] and comment on the criterion of practice in epistemology.

;Chapter III: The Epistemology of Empiriocriticism and Dialectical Materialism III
Lenin seeks to define "matter" and "experience" and addresses the questions of causality and necessity in nature as well as "freedom and necessity" and the "principle of the economy of thought".

;Chapter IV: The philosophical idealists as collaborators and successors of empirio-criticism
Lenin deals with left and right Kant criticism, with the philosophy of [[Philosophy:Immanence|immanence]], Bogdanov's empiriomonism, and the critique of Hermann von Helmholtz on the "theory of symbols."

;Chapter V: The latest revolution in science and philosophical idealism
Lenin deals with the thesis that "the crisis of physics" "has disappeared matter". In this context he speaks of a "physical idealism" and notes (on p.&nbsp;260): "For the only" property "of matter to whose acknowledgment philosophical materialism is bound is the property of being objective reality, outside of our consciousness."

;Chapter VI: Empiriocriticism and Historical Materialism
Lenin discusses authors such as Bogdanov, Suvorov, [[Biography:Ernst Haeckel|Ernst Haeckel]] and Ernst Mach.

In an addition to Chapter IV, Lenin addresses the question: "From what side did [[Biography:Nikolay Chernyshevsky|N. G. Chernyshevsky]] criticize Kantianism?"

==Philosophers and scientists cited==
Lenin cites a broad range of philosophers:

===Immanentist===
* [[Biography:Richard Avenarius|Richard Avenarius]]
* [[Biography:Ernst Mach|Ernst Mach]]
* Richard von Schubert-Soldern

===Russian Machists===
* [[Biography:Jakov Berman|Jakov Berman]]
* Osip Helfond
* [[Biography:Sergei Suvorov|Sergei Suvorov]]
* Pavel Yushkevich

== See also ==
* ''Anti-Dühring''
* Empirio-criticism
* Vladimir Lenin bibliography

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Robert V. Daniels: ''A Documentary History of Communism in Russia: From Lenin to Gorbachev'', 1993, {{ISBN|0-87451-616-1}}.

==External links==
* ''[https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/mec/ Materialism and Empirio-criticism]''&nbsp;by [[Biography:Vladimir Lenin|Vladimir Lenin]] at the Marxists Internet Archive
* ''[https://archive.org/details/materialismempiriocriticism Materialism and Empirio-criticism]'', a [[PDF]] version published by Progress Publishers

{{Positivism}}


[[Category:Materialism]]

{{Sourceattribution|Materialism and Empirio-criticism}}